Book Review | The Beholder

My Rating: ⭐️⭐️⭐️

Title: The Beholder

Author: Anna Bright

Format: Hardcover (borrowed)

Pages: 435

Categories: Fantasy, Young Adult, Fairy Tale, Romance

Selah has waited her whole life for a happily ever after. As the only daughter of the leader of Potomac, she knows her duty is to find the perfect match, a partner who will help secure the future of her people. Now that day has finally come.

But after an excruciatingly public rejection from her closest childhood friend, Selah’s stepmother suggests an unthinkable solution: Selah must set sail across the Atlantic, where a series of potential suitors awaits—and if she doesn’t come home engaged, she shouldn’t come home at all.

From English castle gardens to the fjords of Norge, and under the eye of the dreaded Imperiya Yotne, Selah’s quest will be the journey of a lifetime. But her stepmother’s schemes aren’t the only secrets hiding belowdecks…and the stakes of her voyage may be higher than any happy ending.

What did I just read? 🤔

I’m not quite sure but I did finish it. I felt like I spent most of my reading time trying to pinpoint what world this story is set in. I thought it was historical, but then I realized though East Asia, America, Europe, are mentioned in the story some of the countries’ names were different, so…an alternate Earth? But with the some of the characters traveling by ship I thought okay…the time period is when empires were colonizing other countries…but then it mentioned radio and a transmitter and I was like…huh? Also their clothing, men wore ties and suits? I was confused.

So Selah is the next leader of her little country called, Potomac (it’s a country in America, somewhere in the southeast), but she has a wicked stepmother who wants her gone…sound familiar? Instead of a Prince finding her…SHE gets to choose her husband. But said chosen husband declines her proposal so her stepmother sends her across the Atlantic to other countries to find a husband. Selah knows it’s her stepmother’s scheme to get rid of her for good, but Selah’s plan is to choose a husband fast and get back to her ailing father. She has a list of prospects and two weeks to spend with each to see who will be her potential husband.

The beginning is okay, I was getting into the world building, confused about it, but intrigued enough to keep reading. I wanted to figure it out! Selah is introduced and she seems like a sweet girl who cares for her dad and grandmother. She loves Potomac, but it’s a farming country so she isn’t a flashy girl and seems not to know much about courting Princes. Selah is a bit naive and just kind of bland, but her crew on The Beholder, seems interesting and mysterious, Captain Lang, especially.

We follow her on her journey to England, she falls for her suitor, Bear, but she finds out the truth about their courting and on to the next. They make it up north and she then falls for her next suitor…🤦🏻‍♀️ which is fine, I mean, I’d fall for Torden too, but come on girl, you can’t fall for every guy you meet after only two weeks of courting! Selah wants love, she wants someone to rule Potomac with and live a quiet life reading, planting and digging in the dirt. She wants to get back to Potomac to help her father.

And in the midst of it all is a mash of these fairy tales inspiring this story. Like at first it was Cinderella, and then you kind of get these Hansel and Gretel moments. The big villain in this book is some tsarystsa who’s taking over Europe. Selah is afraid of her and doesn’t want to end up near the Imperiya which the tsarystsa rules, so Selah is really trying to choose quickly from her top three suitors to avoid this villain.

So…is this book like The Bachelorette? She’ll find a husband and that’s it?

It’s not as simple as Selah thinks it will be with the state of the world politics and the Imperiya growing larger. I thought it was just a book about a girl choosing her future husband and that could have worked but there was the whole issue about the tsarystsa taking over Europe. Thing is we only find out more about this at the end, there are hints of it throughout the story but I think I needed more of it, less of the courting.

The ending is where Captain Lang fesses up to what is really happening. I kind of wish I had Captain Lang’s point of view in some parts of the book. Because most of the book is about Selah falling for her suitors!

I think if I understood the world building, the rest would have followed suit but I didn’t get a good grasp of this world. I did keep reading to see if she found a guy who she was compatible with her and she’s two for three right now and haven’t met the third one yet! 🤦🏻‍♀️ What will she do? Oh and I just had a light bulb moment about the world building as I type this out…LOL…sorry! The world is basically set in an alternate Earth where folklore, fairytales and mythology are real! Does that make sense?

Am I intrigued enough to read the next book? I think I am…🤷🏻‍♀️ and that confuses me as well. Usually I wouldn’t bother reading the sequel if the book was confusing. I’ll say I want to know how dismantling the Imperiya comes about. And let’s see suitor number three. I’m definitely here for The Bachelorette part of this story I think. 🤣 And I don’t even watch that show!

I was wavering on my rating for this…I was going for two stars because the world building confused me, but I read this kind of quick and it kept me reading so I bumped it up to three. If you are not a fan of insta-love, stay away from this book! 😅 Also if you have no patience for confusing world building, this one is not for you. And if you can’t stand bland, kind of whiny, lead characters…um…yeah…don’t pick this up. But if you love books where a girl gets to court different boys and they all seem like pretty good, swoon worthy prospects, haha, well here you go!